Chicken Hunt
by inkedinserendipity
Summary: Maui leaves Motunui for two months to return find its Chief exhausted, stressed, and hunting for...chickens?
1. Chapter 1

Two months. For two months, he leaves Motunui, and when he comes back they've already up and set sail in a different direction. It's as though the entire island is restless!

Well, it makes sense - they'd been cooped up on that one island for a millennium, and he understands on an uncomfortably personal level exactly how itchy that type of confinement can make a person. But _honestly_ , the way they're scrambling around the ocean, it's like they expect their island to explode underneath their feet.

At least this time they haven't gone far. Little under two hours' flight westward heralds a squawking seagull. And by "heralds", he means that the bird nearly collides with him. Seagulls are about the stupidest things with wings - it's not like he's a _small_ bird, and the ball of fluff and feathers nearly ran straight into his curved, sharpened beak.

The one thing it's good for is tipping him off to start looking for settlement. As he veers over the warm updrafts, the patchwork roofs of _niu_ leaves loom out of the mist rolling off the ocean. A telltale sign of humans.

Another few flaps of his wings propel him straight into the center of the village. Although the roofs look pretty new, already their _fale tele_ is up and stately in the center. The gathering-space is surrounded on all sides by secondary _fales_ , including a new addition to their typical layout in the form of a forge. Huh. The trade with Tumu's metals must be a bigger success than either he or Moana anticipated.

It's midafternoon, and the villagers are already out and about, so Maui spares no flaunting expense as he plummets toward the ground, fishhook flashing ostentatiously as a demigod materializes practically out of nowhere. The catch of the sunlight against his hook doesn't hurt his image, either. Nothing like making an entrance on a town full of unsuspecting mortals. He can't help but preen a bit at the shocked gasps from below; although he's the patron demigod of practically the entire island, he notes with pride, he never fails to amaze them.

A wide-eyed kid - Fetuilelagi, he remembers, one of Moana's wayfinding proteges - has abandoned her place by her mothers' skirts to wrap her arms around Maui's legs. "Story!" she squeals immediately, entirely uncowed by the looming fishhook resting comfortably in Maui's grasp.

"Yeah!" pipes another voice from behind him. Maui comes face-to-face with a boy younger than Moana, one tooth chipped off his mouth and a split lip. Vaguely, Maui wonders if the right hook that tore at the boy's mouth came from the ocean or another kid in the tribe. "Tell us another story!"

Grinning broadly at the attention, Maui seats himself on the ground, right in the center of the village. His enormous fishhook rests against one muscled shoulder, and Maui takes no small amount of glee at the amazement that lights their faces.

In the beginning, there was fear in the faces of the people of Motunui. He hated it, and he hated to admit that he was used to it. That was just how most of his interactions with mortals went. Before his thousand-year vacation home, everywhere he would venture, he would be known. He was someone to adore, to worship, but never someone to love.

Before Moana, he'd never known that could change.

Over time, as Maui returned to her island again and again, their fear dissipated like the fog of the ocean under the burning gaze of the sun. Eventually, that fear turned to exasperation (a grandmother's _there's only one lizard who steals chickens three times the size of itself, demigod_ ), amusement (the childrens' recurring pleas for stories), and - though he didn't think it possible, not really - fondness.

He's not sure about the precedent for being the patron demigod of a village. Actually, he's not even sure there _is_ precedent. He's just kind of the village's unfathomably powerful, crazy uncle that drops out of the sky for a couple of weeks at a time, bearing gifts in the form of the words he weaves for the children.

"Can I touch it?"

Fetuilelagi snaps him out of his pensive trance. He looks down, and the kids in front of him have multiplied. Without waiting for him to begin his recounting, she reaches out with eager hands toward the handle of his hook.

"Fetu," the boy reprimands her as another pair of children join them. "Don't be rude."

 _As if_ , Maui thinks to himself. "Go for it, kiddo."

Her entire face lights up with glee as she wraps her hand around the handle. She can't so much as make it budge. Frowning, she latches her other palm onto the hook as well, then heaves upward, straining her entire body against the force of gravity.

Another child comes running from the forge and plops himself on the ground to watch the spectacle. Tamati, Maui remembers vaguely, the little boy ambles around the village wearing coconut husks as hats. There's coconut milk in his hair. In the distance, Tamati's brother comes speeding from the forests to join his brother, skidding in the rocky sand on bare feet.

"You're not doing it right," the toothless boy says haughtily, and hip-checks Fetuilelagi out of the way. Without waiting for her response, he tugs.

Just like Fetuilelagi, he fails.

"Neither are you!" she points out, irritated. Maui leans back against the ground, content to watch the young ones squabble over their uncovered treasure.

By some miracle of diplomacy, Fetuilelagi convinces the toothless kid to help her heft the hook. Still to no avail. One by one, the kids he's accumulated - wow, he can already count a full dozen and he's been here for maybe ten minutes - lend their strength to this endeavor.

Maui stifles a laugh and reaches a hand over, nudging a couple of them out of the way with his fingers, then hefts it in one hand, giving it a little spin for the sake of dramatics. Tension forgotten, the tiny warriors of Motunui ooh and aah appreciatively.

"I know, I know," he tells them, laughing. "Once you fight a lava monster, maybe you'll be able to lift this hook too." He sends his hook spinning across his shoulderblades and catches it in his outstretched palm. With a flick of his wrist, he catapults it into the air, gleaming as it spins. "Speaking of which, did I hear that you little rascals wanted to hear a story?"

"Yeah!" cries toothless boy and Fetuilelagi at the same time, before they both decide fighting's not worth the effort in the face of a Maui-story (guaranteed to be riveting and highly exaggerated), then plunk themselves on the ground, turning their eager faces toward him.

Ah, yes. This is his favorite part of the visits - getting to check in on all his adoring fans.

His hook _thunk_ s into the ground behind him. "All right," Maui begins, running through his mental catalogue of tall tales, glancing down at his own tattooed chest for inspiration. Perched on his bicep, Mini-Maui grins and winks.

Which story to tell? Glittershell's way too creepy for kids their age, and Moana hates it when he tells stories that scare the little kiddos. He's already told them a couple of variations on his capture of the wind - maybe the one with the sun? He'd tell it again, he muses, eyeing his crowd appraisingly, if he weren't worried about the sun getting a bit too peeved and turning the sand scorching. Maui's pretty convinced the sun's still holding a grudge, even though the whole lassoing deal was a couple millennia ago.

Eh. Time for a tried-and-true fallback. "How many of you want to learn about coconuts?"


	2. Chapter 2

The stars are full and bright in the sky, the moon shining overhead, by the time Maui's adoring crowd of young fans has dispersed into the wings of their parents. It's only when Arihi extinguishes the flames pinning down the corners of the _fale tele_ that Maui realizes he hasn't seen Moana yet. He spends an eighth-rotation of the stars wandering their small island when he discovers her in, of all places, a coconut grove.

"I know you adore me, Curly," he drawls, "but spending all your time in a coconut grove is just weird."

She jumps, startled. Maui frowns. Normally Curly doesn't frighten that easy.

Then, upon seeing him, she blows out an impatient breath and mumbles something, which seems to involve several uncomplimentary wishes on his magnificent physical countenance.

"What was that?"

"Nothing," she mutters, and rubs at her eyes.

She turns her back to him and winds through the trunks of the coconut trees. Instead of paying attention to him, it looks like she's - peering around them...? What exactly is she looking for in a coconut grove?

"So, how's the life of a Chief treatin' you these days?" he asks casually, swinging his fishhook off his shoulder to rest it under his chin, crossing his arms above the handle.

She grunts impatiently at him, then yawns again. Even as he watches, her eyes start to slide shut. Then, out of nowhere, Moana smacks herself in the face, hard.

His chin slides off his crossed arms as he nearly falls off his fishhook. "Uh, Curly?"

"Something's happening to our chickens," she explains, rubbing the sore skin tenderly. Every third word she seems to swallow a yawn. "I keep getting complaints about it. So," she gestures around her, "I gotta figure out where they're going."

Maui squints at her. "Um. Curly, it's nighttime. It's gonna be kinda hard to see."

"Wayfinders don't need to sleep."

Maui can hardly refrain from rolling his eyes in exasperation. "When you're on the water, sure. If you fall asleep on the water, you might get off course." Or capsize. Or collide straight into a warboat full of Kakamora and end up with a blowdart between your eyes. He shudders. "But you're on land, Curly. Even Chiefs gotta nap sometimes."

"Yeah, but if I don't figure this out, I'll have to -" a huge yawn cuts off her sentence, before she finishes determinedly "- find them tomorrow."

"I get the feeling that, tomorrow, you'll be in better shape to find them."

"Gotta be in better shape to do other, uh, Chief-ly stuff tomorrow," she counters. It's really not up to her standard witticisms.

"If you say so," he replies, baffled as to why a bunch of _chickens_ are so important.

She nods decisively, as if that's that, then continues making her way through the grove, peering behind each branch.

"When's the last time you slept?"

She waves a dismissive hand in his direction.

Curly seems stressed. He's not entirely sure what's happened, because he's been away for a couple months, but he can tell this isn't healthy. "Hey, how about this," he starts cajolingly, and she turns to stare at him. He can't tell if she's that exhausted or just annoyed with him already. "I'll go hawk and bring you a coupla replacement chickens. The islands around here've got plenty."

"Those ones'll eat something," she counters.

Yep, Curly's definitely losing it. "Yeah, like...plants," he says, waving a hand in her face. Maybe she's sleepwalking.

She smacks it away, hard. "No. Those chickens aren't supposed to be here. They'll start killing off the native chickens."

Maui pauses to stare at her. "What?" Did Heihei start some...some chicken war of dominance these past two months?

"You can't just -" she starts to explains, then flaps another hand at him and keeps making her way through the clearing. "Never mind."

That's it. Curly's just no fun to argue with when she's too tired to form a coherent argument. Definitely sleepytime for overactive Chiefs. "Alright," Maui says, more to himself than to Moana. "Time for sleep."

"Maui, I have to find those chickens."

"Sure, and you can." He holds out his hand, jerking his head toward the light of Motunui. "Tomorrow."

"I have other stuff to do tomorrow."

"Uh-huh. Tell me that again when you're sitting in front of your nice, comfortable bed." When she crosses her arms and glares at his palm-offering, he sighs and rescinds it. "Y'know, the one all wrapped in blankets, with pillows. And a whole entire ceiling for blocking out the starlight for when people are supposed to be sleeping."

"I'm the Chief, I have a responsibility to take care of my people -"

"That includes you, Moana. You're the one always talking about how Chiefs aren't above their people - yelling about it, actually, whenever Laki pisses you off - so for the sake of consistency if nothing else, Curly, it's naptime."

"That's different," she protests weakly. "Laki's just a terrible Chief. He _needs_ to see himself as one of his people. I need to - I have to take care of mine."

Maui rolls his eyes and takes Moana by the shoulders. "Look, Curly, you're too tired to form a coherent argument. If you really want to, stay up late tomorrow lookin' for them."

"My argument was coherent."

"Was not." Actually, it was pretty well-articulated for someone who looks like they've got sand crusted in their eyelids, but he's not about to admit that. "Everything you said will make much less sense in the morning. Trust me, Curly."

She frowns at him, yawns, and resorts to glaring.

"Hawk?" he offers, sensing a waver in her resolve.

Moana shoots him one last halfhearted glare. Just for show. Then, still hardly suppressing a jaw-cracking yawn, she nods.

A flash of his fishhook, and he wiggles out his wings happily. "C'mon!" he crows – ha, crows – and she smiles a bit as she hops lightly on his back.

It's only when he's high above Motunui, Moana dozing on his back, that Maui realizes he isn't entirely sure which _fale_ is Moana's. The tallest one - excluding the _fale tele_ , of course, he's spent more than enough time in dozens of structures like it regaling children with tales of his own marvelous exploits to know she doesn't sleep there (unless she just passes out doing boring Chiefly things, and then he's gotta carry her to her own tent) - that one should be hers, right?

This would be so much easier if Moana actually _slept_. Ever since he made the first mistake of telling her that wayfinders don't sleep, she'd seemed to take it as a personal challenge. Whether actually wayfinding or dealing with the details of being Chief, Moana is, well, quite bad at sleeping enough. He kinda regrets telling her that in the first place, back when he'd known her for about six days. In his defense, though, six days is a short time, even to mortals.

He descends smoothly to the ground. As a jarring counterpoint to his own grace, Moana practically stumbles off his back, looking exhausted. "Night, Maui."

"I don't wanna see you awake for at least four hours."

He receives a slurred half-phrase in response that could either be _go bury your head in a coconut_ or _thank you so much for looking after me, Maui._

He's gonna pretend it was the latter.

It's that murky time of morning, that one where the sun hasn't yet risen enough to gray out the stars, when Maui finds Heihei and an entire flock of chickens strutting absently along the south side of the island.


End file.
